This flare was compact but very intense. Most flares occur in the "solar atmosphere" above the visible surface of the Sun and have little impact on the visible surface. However, some particularly intense flares, known as "white light flares", are seen on the visible surface. The 1991 November 15 flare was such an event. In the movie, the upper panel shows the flare in X-rays and the lower panel shows the flare in white light. If you look closely you can see the flare in the lower panel, indicating that this was a very energetic white light flare.
1992
This flare occurred on the limb of the sun allowing us to see it as a side view. The loop-shaped structure of the flare results from the magnetic field in which the flare occurs. In the movie the upper panel shows the the SXT white light data and the lower panel shows the X-ray data. The flare is not seen in the white light data in this case.
1992-2
The 1992 July 11 was a fairly typical small flare. It had a simple one-loop geometry. In the movie the upper panel shows the SXT white light data and the lower panel shows the X-ray data. The flare is not seen in the white light data in this case.
1994
This example shows a ``large-scale eruptive event''. An enormous volume of the solar atmosphere took part in this dramatic eruption; a region of the Sun spanning 150 degrees of longitude and 40 degrees of latitude was heated to temperatures in excess of 2-3 million degrees Celsius in a little over 17 hours. The subsequent disruption of the solar atmosphere resulted in a cloud of solar material weighing 1 billion tons moving towards the Earth at a speed of over 1 million miles per hour. Indeed, this event, first observed at the Sun on 14 April 1994, resulted in a strong geomagnetic storm at the Earth some 68 hours later.
At present, there is a heated debate between solar physicists about whether these ``large-scale eruptive events'' can be truly classified as solar flares or not. Despite the obvious differences in spatial scale, events like that of April 14 1994 exhibit many similarities to the more compact flares highlighted on this page. The typical energies involved in these events are comparable to those in flares, the dynamical development is similar and the eruption in both cases is accompanied by a re-organization of the magnetic field in the solar corona.
1997
The movie shows a small flare, that nonetheless resulted in the restructuring and expansion of the X-ray loops seen in the Sun's corona. There are a couple of gaps in the movie when Yohkoh's view of the Sun was blocked by the Earth. The single frame in the movie shows the X-rays observed by Yohkoh.
roduct: Geophysical Alert Message wwv.txt
). Thanks for the interesting info, though 
